Chaucer and Churchill

Wednesday, 29 October: We took a day trip to the south of London. We started with our own pilgrimage to Canterbury Cathedral, and were even priviledged enough to have Professor Benfell recite the beginning of the prologue to Chaucer's Canterbury Tales in the original old English. The town was small, but very pretty and still flourishing from tourism. Compared to other towns, quite a bit of the Medieval town still remains in Canterbury. Large parts of the old wall surrounding the town still stand. The cathedral itself was lovely. Though the bones of St. Thomas a' Becket have been scattered and lost due to time and protestant enthusiasm, they have a candle marking where his large tomb once stood, and a special altar in the spot where he was killed. Being a fan of Medieval history, I was happily shocked to find that the cathedral holds the remains and a few items of Edward, the Black Prince of Wales. After wandering around the cathedral and its crypt, I spent the next few hours in the town sitting and watching the crowds while enjoying hot chocolate. It was this day that the weather took an especially chilly turn.

After Canterbury we traveled on to Chartwell, the country house of Winston Churchill. The house was absolutely lovely! It had the feel of the home of someone's grandparents. It was large, but not obviously so. The gardens around it were also very pretty. I really enjoyed the fish ponds where Winston would feed his fish everyday. I could really see why he loved the house so much. I only wish that the exterior of the house hadn't been covered in scaffolding. It's the problem of touring in the off season: no crowds, but they're often doing maintenance and repairs.